There's nothing bloggers like to do more than post holiday-appropriate MP3s. So here's two songs about American music. One is genuine in intent, and the other is by Denim.
That Fleshtones song was originally on the Bachelor Party soundtrack, for what it's worth, which also featured R.E.M., the unforgettable Oingo Boingo theme song and "Little Demon" by film co-star Adrian Zmed. It's in print, oddly, unlike any of The Fleshtones' classic '80s catalog.
As tomorrow is a holiday here in the U.S. (Independence Day), seemed only right that this week's Summer Fridays mix should come a day early. At first I thought I'd do an all-American one, then I thought about making it all British (Bizarro world Independence Day where the redcoats won!) and then thought about making it all female-fronted bands... but in the end it's another weird hodgepodge of songs I wouldn't mind hearing at a BBQ.
Tracklist: 1. Noah & the Whale - Five Years Time 2. We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It - Love is the Slug 3. Ida Maria - Louie (demo version) 4. Haircut 100 - Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) 5. The Free Design - Bubbles 6. Cornershop - Topknot 7. The Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods 8. Dick Hyman - The Liquidator 9. Ride - Twisterella 10. The Experimental Pop Band - The Hippies Don't Know 11. The Feeling - I Love it When You Call 12. Belle & Sebastian - You're Cover's Blown 13. Love Is All - Wishing Well 14. The New Shapes - I Didn't Know Her Name 15. The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction 16. The Bangles - Hero Takes A Fall 17. The Exciters - He's Got the Power 18. The Fleshtones - Cold, Cold Shoes 19. The Darkness - Friday Night
Reminder: This in an actual mix, the songs segue together despite being seperate tracks... so no shuffle, please! This mix will be available for one week only. And again, if anyone wants to contribute artwork to a future mix, drop me a line.
Reading John Pareles' article in the Times about The Feelies reunion shows this week (which says pretty much everything I would've said, but better and with quotes) I was a bit shocked to learn that their entire catalog is out of print. I'm actually not surprised about their 1986 comeback album, The Good Earth, which was on Twin Tone and has never seen much of a CD release (my copy, which I bought at Tower Records sometime in the '90s, is licensed from some company called Suite Beat Music) but I am surprised about the three others -- all of which got released (or reissued, in Crazy Rhythm's case) by A&M.
I like all their albums for different reasons: the frenetic energy of the well-named Crazy Rhythms with it's super-clean guitar sound (the band plugged directly into the board... no miked amps); the folky, laid back Good Earth (produced by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, who provides the great solo on "The High Road"); Only Life, probably the most overtly Velvets-y album, their A&M debut which was also my real introduction to the band; and Time for a Witness which is frenetic and rocking and maybe the best thing they did.
Wariness over reunion shows kept me from buying a ticket to one of the Maxwell's shows but I'm very excited about the 4th of July Battery Park show so kindly put on by the River to River Festival folks. If you are too but don't have any of the Feelies records (or are really going to see Sonic Youth but would like to know more about the awesome opener) here's a two-song-per-record career overview. I wouldn't call it a definitive best-of, but it's eight good ones for sure.
Well this is a bummer. London's blue-clad folkies, Noah and the Whale, were supposed to be playing some NYC shows (Mercury Lounge, Union Hall) while they were coming over for Lollapalooza but have now canceled them, though they are still currently on the bill for the big fest in Chicago.
Too bad, because they were good when I saw them at SXSW, despite being prepared to dislike them, and their singles leading up to their upcoming debut album, Peaceful the World Lays Me Down, which is due out July 29 in the U.S. (Two weeks ahead of its UK bow, strangely enough.) The new single "5 Years Time" is kind of irresistible and has already been used in a UK car commercial. I can tell you right now that it will be the lead track on the next Summer Fridays mix. But here it is now too:
One of the better things about working for a Big Company is Summer Fridays. Nothing like leaving the office around lunchtime and knowing don't have to come back till Monday. The idea being you need a head start on traffic for that weekend getaway or whatever. I usually used them to go to the movies. (Wall-E, anyone?) Anyway, with that in mind, I'm going to be offering up a mix every Friday now through Labor Day.
These will be actual mixes, the songs segueing together, but it's still individual songs so you know what you're listening to. They'll be an hour long so you can burn them to CD if so desired, and each comes complete with limited edition jpg artwork! Here's the tracklist:
1. Jacques Dutronc - Le Responsable 2. The Muslims - Beside Myself 3. The Woodentops - Do it Anyway 4. Built to Spill - Center of the Universe 5. Mystery Jets - Young Love 6. Sloan - Cheap Champagne 7. Steely Dan - Any Major Dude 8. The Dodos - Red and Purple 9. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Servo 10. The Left Banke - She May Call You Up Tonight 11. Kim & Co. - Look Up 12. The Monochrome Set -He's Frank (Slight Return) 13. Five O'Clock Heroes - NY Chinese Laundry 14. Nick Lowe - So it Goes 15. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - This Love is Fucking Right 16. Cats on Fire - The Smell of an Artist 17. The dB's - Big Brown Eyes 18. David Bowie - Kooks 19. XTC - Life Begins at the Hop 20. This is Ivy League - London Bridge 21. Tommy James and the Shondells - Mirage
No theme to this, apart from I went all guitar-based pop that I thought felt summery -- I tried to do an even mix of new and old. If anyone would like to contribute art to future mixes, drop me an email. I could certainly use the help in that department. Will credit you, obviously.
These mixes will be available for one week only. Have a good weekend!
When Field Music announced a year ago that they were going on indefinite hiatus, I was sad, but it's turned out to be a blessing in disguise for fans as all it's really meant is that the Brewis Brothers can now double their yearly output. Earlier this year we got School of Language, David Brewis' somewhat mathy, hooked-on-phonics look at the way we communicate. Now comes brother Peter Brewis' new thing, The Week That Was, a similarly high-concept venture that you don't have to fully understand to enjoy. Here's how the band's label describes it:
The Week That Was, written and recorded in late 2007 at Field Music's 8 Studio in Sunderland, emerged from an imagined crime thriller dreamt up by Field Music's Peter Brewis and inspired by Paul Auster's labyrinthine storytelling. Peter started writing the songs as if they were moments, instances of perspectives within this story. The story was left to fall away, leaving a puzzle of musical snapshots. The songs are the evidence in this particular mystery and the victims, perpetrators and onlookers raise questions with concerns familiar to us all. How do we deal with the fragments of information we receive through the television, radio, the internet? How do we balance the distrust we feel for mass media with our dependence on it? How does this relationship influence our hopes and actions in our real lives? And finally, what would happen if we decided not to deal with it anymore and switched off the information flow by throwing away our TVs, radios and newspapers? The anger, confusion and sorrow details the week of Peter's own enforced switch off. This may be about as conceptual as Peter will ever get.
The Week That Was are a much bigger band than Field Music, numbering (on record at least) somewhere around eight, including his brother and his old band's keyboardist, Andrew Moore, plus a string section and the stray flute. And like School of Language, Peter Brewis' songwriting style remains highly recognizable, not that far from Field Music at all, and some have said it's indistinguishable from them. I would disagree -- TWTW is a much warmer sounding record than anything his old band made. Peter claims musical inspiration came from the early '80s when people were obsessed with Fairlight synthesizers and the Linn drum. But as I was listening to the album's first single, "Scratch the Surface," the more I listened the more it reminded me of Steely Dan than anything else. ("Night by Night," specifically.)
Most people view early '00s rawkers The Darkness as one big joke but that first album is a classic if you ask me and I still listen to it a lot. Every song on the album could've been a single, with giant hooks, great solos, and a suprisingly deft sense of humor. (It also had amazing outrageous videos.) It's follow-up, One Way Ticket to Hell (and Back), is what you'd have to call a Classic Coke Album, where bigger seemed better but, it was just bigger and not anywhere as good. But Permission to Land holds up.
I imagine at least a few of us have been wondering what Justin Hawkins has been up to since the demise of The Darkness. After a short-lived synthy solo project called British Whale, and two years of sobriety, Hawkins has unleashed his new rock group, Hot Leg, unto the world. Here's what the band's MySpace says:
Hot Leg is a brand new musical group featuring Justin 'Dave' Hawkins, former lead singer/lead guitarist/lead songwriter of The Darkness. Hot Leg are an entirely hairier beast, and they make really really brilliant rock music.
Hawkins' patented 'Truth Larynx' is the perfect foil to the 6-stringed rapier of Pete 'Liquid Guitar Hands' Rinaldi, the Axemeister General. Meanwhile Samuel SJ Stokes and Darby Todd have emulsified into one muscular unit now known only as 'The PowerZone'.
Four men with at least one machine apiece operating in pitch-perfect harmony. Who could ask for more?
Some songs, for one thing, which most of us haven't heard yet. Hot Leg have finished their debut album, due out sometime this fall, but have released a song, "Heroes," to the internet which won't be on that album. Behold:
It's definitely more boogie-rock and less Queen and while it's not as hooky as Darkness songs like "Growing on Me" or "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," the production style sounds like a real band and I look forward to hearing more from the 'Leg. Welcome back.
Meanwhile, enjoy those classic Darkness videos (including one for "Friday Night" I never knew existed) after the jump.
What with the NYC Popfest still fresh in my ears (I think it's called tinitus), I've had indie-pop on the brain lately -- something that's not that likely to change thanks to these two (three, really) free Summer compilations from originating in Scandinavia.
The fine folks at Swedish label Labrador have just released a 30-track Summer Sampler, containing new songs from upcoming releases as well as some choice cuts from their extensive catalog. Artists include pretty much everybody you'd expect: Pelle Carlberg, The Radio Dept., The Legends, Acid House Kings, The Mary Onettes, Sambassadeur, Suburban Kids with Biblical Names, and my favorite band to contain brackets in thier name, [ingenting].
It's a free (if very slow) download... get it here. (Downloads broke Labrador's server, now up on Pirate Bay).
Meanwhile over in Norway, Knut of the great blog Eardrums (who was on Blog Fresh earlier this year) has put together a two volume Summer's Here compilation, complete with artwork and a downloadable booklet with bios, etc. Some of the tracks are exclusive to this compilation -- itt's a really nice package. I'll be honest: of the 48 bands on it, I've only heard maybe four bands (The LK, Northern Portrait, Club 8, Cold Mailman), but Knut has great taste and I can't wait to check it all out.
And while not exactly fitting with the other two, Bradford Cox has just posted a new Micromix on the Deerhunter/Atlas Sound blog, inspired by the Norwegian leg of the Deerhunter tour. Here's what he says about it: "It's mid-summer here so there is only like an hour of actual darkness. this mix is for the burdened youths of the nordic tribes who spit on americans outside kebab shops (credit card receipts flying through the air) like weird weather (fragments) a bottle of still water cost 6 american dollars long live loss." It's got everything from The Bats and Electrelane to My Bloody Valentine and Chrome. Worth a download. And don't forget Atlas Sound plays River to River's Seaport Music on July 25
Attitude. San Diego's The Muslimshave it in spades. Real, f-you mom/dad/boss/ex-girlfriend/whaddyagot? attitude. Capping off a week of NYC shows (including that Vice party at Santos), that attitude came through loud and clear even while wearing ball caps and polo shirts. Clearly, they see no reason to conform to what anyone deems is cool. The music -- garage bashers a la The Modern Lovers or The Velvet Underground -- does all the talking.
Sloanand Bowery Ballroom are a great combination and I'm so glad they choose to do multiple nights there instead of playing one show somewhere bigger. I've done enough Sloan reviews here so I'll try and keep it brief.
Jay Ferguson seemed ill or in a bad mood or both on Thursday. Even on the four songs he sang, he barely seemed into it, to the point he wasn't much of a presence on stage. Maybe that's what happened with the rest of the band when he missed the first encore (One Chord to Another nugget "People of the Sky") causing keyboardist Greg McDonald to take over on drums mid-song so Chris Murphy could play bass. When Jay came out afterwards, he gave the rest of the band a WTF look. He did perk up for a few songs, most notably Chris' "All I Am is All You're Not" and "Fading Into Obscurity" which was the best song of the night, I think.
Jay was in much better spirits on Friday, a no-travel day for all of them, and it was a better show overall even if the song selection wasn't as good. (No "Fading Into Obscurity" seems a crime). However, Friday's encore gave us one of my all-time Sloan songs, "She Says What She Means." For it, McDonald took over on bass, freeing Murphy to shift into Steve Perry mode, which he clearly enjoys. It's as fun to watch as his Keith Moon impersonation while on the kit.
Speaking of, Andrew Scott can get his Moon on too, but unlike Murphy, who just kind of goes apeshit, Andrew is always in control. He is, without a doubt, one of the best drummers going, and I am happy just to watch him behind the kit. He's good on the guitar too, of course, and "Blackout" and the Dylan-esque "Down in the Basement" sounded great. While we got "Sensory Deprivation," I wish they'd have broken out some of his late-'90s rockers like "Sinking Ships" or "On the Horizon."
They haven't quite worked out the new album live, which, apart from " Believe in Me" and "All I am is All You're Not," the latter of which is apparently about Canada vs. USA. And they still have yet to play my favorite song from Parallel Play, Jay's "Cheap Champagne." I'm sure when they come back around in the fall, the album will be sounding as good as Never Hear the End of It's songs did this time.
In a bit of wacky schtick, the merch booth was set up to the left of the stage with a giant illuminated MRCH sign. At first I thought this was a nod to RCRDLBL, MGMT, and all the other non-Welsh, vowel-deficient spellings that are all over popular music these days. It was actually supposed to be call letters for the in-house radio station, manned by DJ Skip Lowe (actually Small Sins singer Kevin Hilliard), complete with cheesy "imaging" jingles, etc. This was fine before the show but the band would throw it to Skip every so often, mid-show, which I'm sure the band got a kick out of but kinda knocked the momentum out of the show.
It was amusing, though, when Skip interviewed "special guest Chris Murphy" before Thursday's show:
THURSDAY SETLIST: I'm not a kid anymore | Burn for it | If I could change your mind | Coax Me | Reach Out | All I am is all You're Not | Down in the Basement | HFXNSHC | Blackout | Too Many | Fading into Obscurity | Believe in Me | G turns to D | Witch's Wand | I can't sleep | Emergency 911 | The Dogs | Living With the Masses | Another Way I Could Do It | Who You Talkin' To? | Losin' California | Pen Pals | Money City Maniacs | ENCORE: People of the Sky | The Lines You Amend | If It feels Good, Do It
FRIDAY SETLIST: Believe In Me | All I Am is All You're Not | Don't You Believe A Word | Everything You've Done Wrong | I'm Not A Kid Anymore | The Dogs | Sensory Deprivation | Burn For It | Ready For You | Witch's Wand | I Am The Cancer | Ill-Placed Trust | Emergency 911 | Down In The Basement | Something Wrong | I've Gotta Try | Living The Dream | Take Good Care Of The Poor Boy | Friendship | The Other Man | Money City Maniacs | ENCORE: Flying High Again | Who Taught You To Live Like That? | Deeper Than Beauty | She Says What She Means | The Good In Everyone
Hmm... what else? Johnny Marr was there. A few more pictures at my Flickr.
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